David Notkin

My educational and research interests are in software engineering, with a particular focus in software evolution: understanding why software is so hard and expensive to change, and in turn reducing those difficulties and costs. These interests come from my firm belief that the ability to change software—that is, the "softness" of software—is where its true power resides.

I try to work directly or indirectly on questions like: Can we effectively identify and close the gap between Fred Brooks' notion of incidental (accidental) and essential complexity? How much should it cost to develop, test, and evolve software? Can we design analyses that combine the best properties of both static and dynamic approaches?